Bolton was a regular on FoxNews and was a troll-the-libs kind of guy. So it figures Trump would give him a position in his administration. None of that really matters though because Trump doesn't give a hoot what anybody in his administration thinks. Bolton is still relatively new in the administration though, it will take some time for reality to set in. Then he'll quit and be replaced by someone even worse.

Trump really doesn't have advisors. He has a bunch of people who defend him in the press and against the deep state.

***

So I'm dealing with a dumb work issue at midnight on the Friday before Christmas, but while waiting for my model to crash, I saw this story from a site that I assume is not The Onion:

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The US should stay in northern Syria to deter attacks against Syrian Kurds, well-known American linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky said in an interview with the Intercept last week.

“The other crucial question is the status of the Kurdish areas — Rojava. In my opinion, it makes sense for the United States to maintain a presence which would deter an attack on the Kurdish areas,” he said.

No idea how old this article is. But Noam [expletive] Chomsky is defending the presence of the US military in Syria. I'm not sure Noam [expletive] Chomsky would defend the US military presence at Fort Knox.

I think this will be remembered as a watershed event for the country. This is the event that shows Trump is not clueless. Instead he is intent on destroying the world order America created but that he feels has restrained America from it's "greatness"- what ever the hell that is.

This shows Trump is now confident that he can use his gut to 'govern' without advisors and without a cabinet worthy of the name.

The chaos this will bring has only just begun. There will be new winners and losers. I think the stock and bond markets are in for a very wild ride until this gets sorted out.

Trump stunned his Cabinet, lawmakers and much of the world with the move by rejecting the advice of his top aides and agreeing to a withdrawal in a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week, two U.S. officials and a Turkish official briefed on the matter told The Associated Press.

This is it for me. If it’s good for Putin, Iran, whatever. Maybe it’s worth doing, but people need to know this stuff is happening first, what the risks are, and why we’re doing it. How many humanitarian crises are we trying to manage and are we likely to make a difference by being there. Right now I doubt any one civilian knows all the military activity we’re engaged in.

I get this. In fact, I think we should have a much lighter footprint around the world. I am a fan of Chalmers Johnson and 'Blowback'. Why DO we need to be the world's policeman?

But this is not the way to go about it. Alliances, established friendships, and consistency in foreign policy are good things. The alarming thing and the game changer is the fact that the President decided on a policy far-reaching consequences after one phone call with a foreign leader, against the unanimous opinion of his closest advisors and majority of the Senate, and without consulting any of them first. There was no effort made to prepare allies or even our own military which will be duty-bound to carry out the policy.

Technically though, Turkey is an alliance and a NATO partner. That’s a whole other problem.

I’m on board with Mattis about how we treat our allies and adversaries. Trump has it somewhat backwards, and even the things he does I agree with he does in the worst way possible. This pullout for one.